What Do You Do When a Plane Is Struck By Lightning? Sully Knows.

Pilots work hard to avoid getting hit by lightning, even before the flight begins; we study the weather patterns, anticipate, plan ahead, and choose the best route for the flight. But storms still happen. Captain Sully Sullenberger explains what he does when an airplane must fly through a storm…

You all know Sully Sullenberger, the hero pilot who safely landed a plane on the Hudson River, saving every single one of his 155 passengers and his entire crew, after the aircraft hit some birds and lost all its engines.

Sully is also an aviation safety expert and an author, and as he just finished a book tour for his latest work, Making a Difference: Stories of Vision and Courage from America’s Leaders, we got on the phone with him to get some travel advice. Because in a tough situation, whose insight do you really want? Whose voice of reason will keep you from panicking? That’s right: Sully.

What do you do when the plane is caught in a bad storm or hit by lightning?

Of course, we work very hard to avoid situations like this, even before the flight begins; we study the weather patterns, anticipate, plan ahead, and choose the best route for the flight. I’ve been flying for 45 years, and for the first part of my career I flew on the West Coast, in California, where the weather is generally more temperate, and you don't have the huge thunderstorms that you do in the Midwest and other parts of the country. After the first eight years, I did fly all over the continental U.S. and encountered winter snows, wind, ice and summertime thunderstorms. We plan ahead to avoid weather, and we try to avoid the turbulence around storms. Often, changing the crew’s altitude will either eliminate or lessen turbulence.

I’ve had some that lasted 20 minutes or so just because of the way the winds were making the upper-level air move. But I think every professional pilot at some point, even well away from a storm, has been stuck by lightning. Often it doesn’t even damage the airplane, and when you land you get it inspected. But I’ve never had one that was so damaging that we had to land immediately, or never had turbulence so bad that it caused injury. I know on rare occasions it can happen.

If I got into a situation where people were very concerned, and it was going to be some period of time before we could get through the area where it was turbulent at every altitude, and there was no way to avoid it, then I would make an announcement in the cabin on the P.A. I would tell my passengers, "This is the captain, this is what's happening, this is why—because it's strong winter winds or because we are in an area where the air is unstable. We've chosen the best altitude, we’ve turned on the fasten seatbelt sign. We’ve told everyone, including the flight attendants, to sit down. It’s going to last about 20 minutes, and in that time I want to you to know that the airplane is designed to handle this turbulence plus a lot more, a 50 percent safety margin. You'll see the wings flex—they're supposed to, that's how they alleviate the turbulence. We in the cockpit are trained to manage this and we are flying at the most appropriate speed that will be the most comfortable for you and put the least stress on the airplane, and in 20 minutes we’ll be out of it and on our way. In the meantime, just sit back and know that we're taking good care of you, and we'll get there as comfortably and as safely as we can."

I believe that what makes turbulence so frightening for many people is that it is an unfamiliar situation. Most people don’t understand what causes turbulence, and you are not aware how the pilots are trained to manage it, and how the airplanes are designed and built to handle it. One of the best ways I have found to help people put turbulence into perspective is to have them do a mental exercise. The next time you are a passenger in a car (something that is familiar, that you drive in everyday) close your eyes and concentrate on every bump, vibration, jerk, jolt, sway, and sudden stop. They add up to a lot more "turbulence" than an airplane, yet you are more confident because you are used to them, and you know what causes it.